


surreptitious

by parkjinchu



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Secret Relationship, Sexuality, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 16:11:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13251837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkjinchu/pseuds/parkjinchu
Summary: a secret, bitter, guilty pleasure - one another.this is a work of fiction, and in no way represents the real lives of astro's members. in case of astro/fantagio/reasonable fan request, this fic will be taken downread full disclaimer on my profile





	surreptitious

**Author's Note:**

> i was going to post this as a oneshot, but i wondered if people would actually like it, so i decided to post the first chapter to see what you all think before i continue! please read end notes:

Bitter.

One kiss, a hug, another kiss. His arm looped around the delectable curve of her waist. From two paces behind them, he watches, as his lips press to her cheek, how her fingertips chase after the feel of his skin.

They part, eventually, at the point in the pathway where her bus stop waits – a single, lonely shack and a bench. He kisses her; long, and slow, cherishing and savouring what he can. His long fingers thread through the hair around the bend of her nape, as he draws her closer into him. Whispered goodbyes, their connected hands falling to their respective sides. He waves.

“That’s gross, Dongmin,” Jinwoo says, walking beside him now. Continuing their commute to their own homes, footsteps matching – a marching band of two.

“What’s gross?”

“You, and _Doyeon_.”

Dongmin peers up into the sky, a rich blue, decorated with pink lined and lacy clouds. He hums softly, “I guess, so.” A smile tugs the corners of his lips up. He is Summer sweet, relaxed, fond, and warm.

Jinwoo examines him – Dongmin is made up of soft lines, broad shoulders and a toned abdomen. Glowing, with soft pink cheeks. He is intelligent, a little witty, and compassionate; Lee Dongmin is the personification of ‘perfect’. Doyeon, this girl of Dongmin’s – she was lucky, and she knew it. She took a personal pride in the way her slim body fit within his, her small breasts and the curve of her bottom just the right size to fit within his soft palm.

Jinwoo can’t help but feel a spark of jealousy, a hot flame that prickles in his chest. He’d always had a curious, guilty affection for other males; Dongmin was a frequent thought, a late-night fantasy. He was a dream to send Jinwoo over the edge when his fingers alone didn’t work…

His secret.

“You know?” Dongmin starts, “Doyeon and I, our 200-days will be coming up soon,” he declares, simply.

“That’s sweet.”

“Yeah…”

To Jinwoo, Dongmin was somewhat of an enigma. He presented himself as a polite, obeying teacher’s pet. After they’d become closer, through their mutual interest in the Arts – Jinwoo’s photography against Dongmin’s favouring for dramatic theatre – Dongmin opened up as a fun, creative character, a unique charm.

He says surprising things – vulgar and idealistic, unimaginable by someone who thought of him as his initial presentation, who identified him by his petite face. He laughs too loud, expels an aura all too sweet, takes his friends under his wing and nurtures them. Keeps his secrets locked away, where no one could ever reach them.

There was no person like him.

“Will you do anything for your 200-day anniversary?” Jinwoo asks.

Dongmin is silent a moment, then, “Perhaps.” Odd – weren’t couples supposed to enjoy milestones such as these? Supposed to count down the days until their incremental anniversaries? The boy must sense Jinwoo’s confusion, hurries to tack on, “We haven’t planned anything, yet.”

“You like her, a lot,” Jinwoo comments, a formality.

“I… Obviously,” Dongmin says, as if the thought otherwise were preposterous. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, though he maintains his matched pace with Jinwoo – two left feet, two right feet. “I can trust you, right?” He asks, a dainty roll of hope in his tone.

There’s an invisible bridge between them, incomplete, the arch in the centre yet to meet. Dongmin attempts to cross it, with this question, to bring their relationship closer, just that extra inch. The two of them remained in limbo – never best friends, never quite strangers – always on their respective sides of the bridge.

“Yeah,” Jinwoo replies. “We’re friends,” he agrees. That was all, though.

“Sometimes, I want more from Doyeon,” he replies, bluntly, the words falling from his lips nonchalantly. A thought kneaded and toughened, contemplated over and over until it meant almost nothing anymore.

“More?” Jinwoo asks, glancing up at the boy’s taller figure.

“Something she can’t give…” Dongmin scratches the back of his neck, fingertips disappearing into his head of black hair. “You know?”

Jinwoo shrugs, stopping on the corner, where their paths home finally split. A bus bumbles past, and Jinwoo wonders if it’s Doyeon’s, with her on the back seat, listening to love songs and thinking of Dongmin. The boy doesn’t turn and look too, though. He simply stills, waiting for Jinwoo to understand.

He doesn’t.

 

+

 

Morning comes slowly, creeps over the horizon and seeps into the fog. There’s a foreign emptiness that had settled in Jinwoo’s chest overnight - he’d been let in on one of Dongmin’s precious secrets, one that he kept hidden away behind the threaded tapestry of his persona, and he didn’t understand it.

Dongmin is waiting on the corner where their paths meet, school shoe kicking at a little pebble. It skitters across the pavement, rolls into Jinwoo’s shoe. The taller boy meets his gaze, eyes tired, smile lazy. He waves when Jinwoo does, and lets their shoulders press together as they walk.

“You look tired,” Jinwoo tells him.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Biology study?”

Dongmin huffs, shrugging. “I just couldn’t sleep. Too much on my mind.”

Jinwoo hums in agreement. He’d had trouble falling asleep that night, too. He’d worked Dongmin’s half of a confession in his brain until it had exhausted him into sleep, but he’d yet to come up with an answer. He wouldn’t push for one – but Jinwoo was desperate to know more about this boy, that perhaps other people don’t know.

That thought sits high in his mind. Does he want to know more about Dongmin for a personal reason, or because no one else has had the privilege? He wonders, also, how well Doyeon knows him.

“You wanna talk about it?” He asks, an invitation.

The other boy doesn’t say anything, just keeps walking. His tall form walks at its natural speed, periodically slowing to match Jinwoo’s pace. He sighs again, peers away from Jinwoo and out onto the road, where a bicycle rider glides past, where a grandmother and her granddaughter stroll hand-in-hand. Without turning to Jinwoo, he asks, “Have you ever thought about sleeping with a guy?”

 _All the time_ , Jinwoo thinks, even before he can be taken aback by the casual question. Or, perhaps, admission. _Remain casual_ , he tells himself. “Ah, yeah, I guess,” he shrugs, tucking his hands into his pockets, wondering if he’s giving anything away by playing so nonchalant.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Dongmin admits. Jinwoo chuckles, then, nudging him with his shoulder, addressing the lewd connotation – but Dongmin isn’t making a joke, isn’t trying to make Jinwoo laugh. He peers down at his feet, sighing softly. A tone gentle, a little fragile, he mutters, “I didn’t mean it like _that_.”

“Then, how did you mean it?” the shorter boy asks. He unbuttons his school blazer, as they take shelter from the stinging, early Summer sun on the bus stop bench. Dongmin flops onto the wooden seat, huffing gently, his black hair falling over his eyes. He looks beautiful, even in his stress that pulls at the soft and supple curves of his face.

“I meant,” Dongmin begins, a shaky breath that dribbles out of him, as he wipes a delicate hand over his face. “I think I might like guys,” he admits, a gentle mumble. Jinwoo watches him carefully, as the boy swallows, eyes cast to a hole in the concrete.

A bubble of emotion rises within Jinwoo’s chest – perhaps excitement, an intense curiosity, something akin to _fear_.

The bus is coming, slowing down to a halt by the stop. Dongmin meets eyes with Doyeon through the window, both boys watch as a brilliant grin explodes on her lips.

“I’m gay,” Jinwoo tells him, lets the words fall out of his mouth without thinking, only a moment before the bus doors open with a dramatic huff, and Doyeon skips out onto the pavement and into Dongmin’s arms. Dongmin is staring at him over her shoulders, hands clasped loosely around her upper back.

A forlorn look that is all too familiar to Jinwoo sets in his gaze, piercing.

The three of them continue their way to school, and like a switch had been flicked, it’s as if Dongmin had never confessed to such a thought. As if his life were simple and set out before him, Doyeon attached to his hip by his delight. When Doyeon leaves to seek a teacher’s help, Dongmin spares him a rather sincere gaze, that Jinwoo has trouble reading.

He doesn’t see Dongmin for the rest of the morning.

 

+

 

“Were you serious?” Dongmin asks, a concerned urgency in his tone.

He meets Jinwoo in the Art’s Hallway, which connects the Drama room and the Photography Club. Jinwoo is sorting through a thick folio, filled with the hundreds of photos he’d taken in the year thus far. With a hushed breath, Dongmin fires the question at him, one hand clutching at the shorter boy’s shoulder.

So far, throughout the day, Jinwoo had tried to suppress the events of the morning – coming out. He’d always imagined it as setting someone down, preparing them for the truth, feeling so nervous and embarrassed he was dizzy. Instead, he’d told Dongmin quite simply, almost as easily as one would say ‘thank you’.

“Were _you_?” Jinwoo retorts, pulling his arm away and stepping back into the club room. He dumps the folder into a draw, sticky-tape-labelled as his own. Dongmin trails behind him, as he moves to a small door that opens onto the dark room.

The school had had the dark room since before Jinwoo’s own teacher can remember. It was a cramped space, cluttered with various tools and other student’s works. The room was engulfed by an eerie red light that spilt out as he opened the door slightly and slipped inside.

Some of his developed photographs are pegged to the length of string, and he begins tugging them down as Dongmin follows him into the room, leaving the door open. The bright, white light from outside floor floods into the room, a beacon. “Shut the door,” Jinwoo tells him. “The purpose of a dark room is to be dark,” he murmurs, and waits for Dongmin to turn and close the door. Jinwoo flicks a switch, pictures the sign outside the door, _Light On, Room Occupied_ , and imagines the light flickering to life.

“I…” Dongmin starts, hoisting himself onto the bench beside Jinwoo. “Yeah, I was…” He decides.

“Confused?” Jinwoo suggests, but doesn’t wait for Dongmin’s response before he asks, “Have you told Doyeon?”

He looks taken aback, “What? No, of course I haven’t told her, what are you thinking?”

Jinwoo sighs, pulling a tray from the shelf and filling it with development fluid. As the liquid falls into the tray, sloshing and glugging, he defends, “I don’t know if you’ve realised, but I’ve never dated anyone, Dongmin. Didn’t I tell you this morning that I was gay?” There’s a tension that builds up in his limbs, and he takes it out on the fluid bottle, slamming the cap back on and shoving it onto the shelf.

He’d never had the chance to date anyone, to love anyone, had always suffered under his own affections and attempted to erase them. He didn’t know how to maintain a relationship, how to keep someone he loved happy. Dongmin simply didn’t understand.

The taller boy can’t help but reach behind him and slide the fluid bottle neatly back into place, smiling sheepishly as he’s stared down.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Dongmin presses, “I’m confused. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“I never wanted anything. You started this. You brought this up,” Jinwoo rebuts, taking a page labelled under his name and sticking it in the fluid. He watches as the sheet darkens in splotches, slowly, the image coming to life.

“I brought it up because I was seeking help from someone I trust,” Dongmin argues, voice rolling with pressure. He grips the edge of the bench, knuckles white, but appearing pink under the red light. A silence hovers between them, heavy, thick with hostility. He quivers, only slightly, as he murmurs, “I’m scared, Jinwoo.”

Jinwoo thinks of all the times he’s thought that very thing – imagined a boy pressed against his lips and thought, _I’m so scared_. Remembers all the nights he slept on a damp pillow case, soaked through with his tears. Recalls the times his brother would critique something by referring to it derogatorily, and the rough shift in his chest that would follow, tripping him into caution.

So, he whispers, “Me, too.”

It’s then, as he admits this, that he realises Dongmin is crying. Sniffling, wiping at his eyes with the end of his blazer, shoulders shuddering and hunched over with a curl of his back. He looks small, vulnerable. Jinwoo feels his chest squeeze, recognises the exact feeling he’d felt countless times, reflected in a friend.

 _He takes a leap of faith_ – crosses the invisible bridge they’d yet to finish building – and wraps his arms around Dongmin’s shoulders, holding him into his secure warmth.

_He lands._

This is the closest they’ve ever been, Jinwoo realises, as he feels Dongmin’s quivering chin against his chest. Perhaps unfairly, or with a guilty pleasure, it makes his heartbeat speed up a little, he takes a secret enjoyment in their touch.

The boy cowers into Jinwoo’s hold, back arched over, as he sits higher than Jinwoo’s waist stands, on the bench. His arms slither out from their place, hunched by his chest, pulling around Jinwoo’s back and dragging him a little closer. Dongmin’s fingers linger by the nape of Jinwoo’s neck, digits toying with his shorter hairs, touch sending shivers down Jinwoo’s spine. In return, the shorter boy moves his arms down around Dongmin’s waist, rubbing a soothing hand over his long back.

The act seems to soothe the taller boy, who, eventually, stops shuddering and sniffling. He takes a deep breath, unfurling from his place in Jinwoo’s arms, which suddenly feel empty and cold. He had become comfortable, had found himself wanting to stay. As it leaves, he yearns, lets his hands ease away from Dongmin and run down his thighs to allow himself a little more, in case he can’t have the feel of him against his fingers again.

Dongmin meets his gaze. He scans, searching Jinwoo’s eyes for a trace of unease, or discomfort. Searching for apprehension that wasn’t present. His fingers clutch onto the sleeves of Jinwoo’s blazer, twisting into the fabric.

Gravity. Magnets. Pulled together, not by their own volition, but by something greater, it seems. Time slows with the effort it takes to bring their lips together, in a long, clumsy kiss. An experiment, tingling with curiosity and the taste of nervous sweat and tears. Jinwoo’s mind was foggy, couldn’t work out _why_ they’d happened into this position, simply flooded with affection that burns his skin.

Dongmin’s hands clutch at the lapels of Jinwoo’s blazer, tugging, attempting to draw him closer. Their chests press, and Jinwoo can feel the frenzied heart of the other boy, on the right side of his chest. Having succeeded, Dongmin’s hands slither up his sides, fingers sliding into his hair, creating rows like orchards between his digits. Dongmin’s tongue, hot and wet, explores his mouth, a desperate inquisitiveness overtaking him.

_He’d landed, safely._

 

+

 

Doyeon kisses Dongmin, painfully long and sickeningly sweet, her little tongue flicking over his upper lip, before she steps away and onto the bus. Jinwoo has to swallow down a laugh, if only to hold down the confession that would follow right after; he’d kissed those lips, not three hours ago, too.

They walk together, in silence, hands swinging between them. “We’re not going to talk about it?” Dongmin asks.

“I didn’t think you wanted too.”

“I do…”

Jinwoo bites his lip, swipes his tongue over the plush, pink skin. Longs for the taste of Dongmin. “Did… Did you like it?”

There’s a short, thoughtful silence. Then, “Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment regarding whether you liked it or not :)  
> you can find me on my [tumblr](parkjinchu.tumblr.com) or my [twitter](twitter.com/parkjinchu) for updates/astro related posts :)


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